Virtual Media Briefing

on Exercise “Steadfast Defender 2021” with LtGen Brice Houdet, SHAPE Vice Chief of Staff, moderated by NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

  • 06 May. 2021 -
  • |
  • Mis à jour le: 10 May. 2021 09:33

(As delivered)

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Good afternoon from Brussels and thank you very much for joining us online for today’s briefing on NATO’s exercise Steadfast Defender 21.

This is NATO’s flagship exercise for this year, involving over 9,000 troops from more than 20 Allies and partners.

You may have heard Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg mentioning the importance of the exercise earlier today, saying it demonstrates the importance of quickly mobilizing, moving and exercising NATO troops at high readiness, and as a test of military mobility across Europe.

We are very happy to have for the briefing today, for the overview of the exercise, Lieutenant General Brice Houdet, who is the Vice Chief of Staff of SHAPE, our military headquarters in Mons, Belgium. 

We are also joined today by:

Colonel James Scott from Allied Joint Force Command Naples, in Italy.

Rear Admiral Andrew Betton, Deputy Commander of NATO Joint Force Command Norfolk, in the United States.

Lieutenant General Jürgen Knappe, Commander of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command in Ulm, Germany.

And Major Jean François Lelubre, also from SHAPE.

And of course, we will be happy to take questions after the initial briefing.

And we'll start with the opening remarks by Lieutenant General Houdet.

Over to you, sir.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Thank you very much, Oana.

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon.

I would like to give you a few hints on exercise Steadfast Defender 21. First of all, why do we do this exercise? There are three primary reasons why we do the exercise.

The first one, the name of the exercise is self-speaking: Steadfast Defender. NATO is definitely a defensive alliance, and we trained to be ready to defend the member countries of the Alliance.

The second reason is because of readiness. As you are well aware, soldiers - and when I say the soldiers this is the generic term including airmen, sailors, marines, and army soldiers - but soldiers need to train. This is what they do. The daily life of a soldier is either deployed on operations, or train to be deployed, and then take some rest. That's roughly it. So this is what we do. We train to be ready, to have operational mentality and capability.

The third reason why we're doing this exercise Steadfast Defender is to enhance and reach, maintain the cohesion of the Alliance, our interoperability between armed forces of member nations of the Alliance, and, of course, to also maintain the transatlantic link between the North American nations and the European nations members of the alliance.

The second thing I would like to tell you is, what is this exercise. So, this exercise is under the lead of our Joint Force Command in Naples, of which, Colonel Scott is participating in this conference, and is made up of three parts. One part is a maritime part, which is going to take place at the end of May, composed of roughly 20 Alliance ships, among which Her Majesty ship aircraft carrier the Queen Elizabeth, of about 5000 people and 40 aircraft, among which F-35s.

The second part of the exercise will take place also at the end of May which will be located in Ulm in Germany. And this is a command-post exercise to train the Joint Support and Enabling Command, of which the commander is in this press conference, General Knappe.

And the third part of the exercise is going to be a land exercise, taking place in Romania in the Black Sea region, where we will have 4000 soldiers of a high-readiness force being deployed with along 600 vehicles, and they will do land training and live fire exercises. All during this exercise, we of course also train very specific capabilities like cyber space, special operations, logistics. And this is of course part of the scenario.

And the last point I would like to tell you is that this exercise is for the first time, training our modernized new and adapted NATO Command Structure, with the two new commands that we have created recently – the Joint Support and Enabling Command that I've told of, but also a Joint Command located in Norfolk, Virginia, of which you have the deputy commander Admiral Betton today.

We are very happy to take your questions and answer anything you would like to know more.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Thank you very much. And with that we'll go straight to questions […] We'll go to Michael Greenfield from Sky News.

Michael Greenfield (Sky News)

Yes, thank you. I’m just wondering how concerned are you that this latest exercise will be conceived as provocative by the Russians?

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Well, all NATO exercises are defensive. They are transparent, they're fully consistent with our international commitments. So, nobody has any reason to see NATO exercises as provocative. We are fully transparent about what we do and all countries have the right to exercise their forces, and of course that also applies for NATO Allies, especially at a time when we see that the security environment is much more challenging, much more unpredictable, not least because of Russia's aggressive pattern of actions, but also for other reasons such as terrorism, for instance, disruptive technologies, cyber-attacks, and others. Therefore, this is a defensive exercise. It's not meant as a signal to any country in particular. It's not directed against any country, in particular. It is a defensive exercise meant to send a message to everybody that NATO is ready to defend all Allies against any threat.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

I concur to what you say. As I said, this is what soldiers do. Soldiers train. We need to train. If we don't train we are not ready. So, we are a defensive Alliance. So we train to be ready. What you have to know also is that an exercise of such magnitude takes somewhat a long two years of planning and preparation. Of course, we have flexibility, reactivity in this Alliance but if we want this exercise to be very fruitful, we need to plan very carefully and it takes time.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Thank you very much. We'll now go to Schwäbische Zeitung and Ludger Möllers.

Ludger Möllers (Schwäbische Zeitung)

Hello, this is Ludger Möllers. Good afternoon. I have three questions. The first is: what is a Steadfast Defender 21 in Ulm about? How is the JSEC involved? What are your tasks, Mr. General? And what benefit exactly does the JSEC provide for the Alliance? What capability gap does it fill?

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Juergen, go ahead.

Lieutenant General Jürgen Knappe (Commander of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command)

Thank you for this question. Lieutenant General Jürgen Knappe speaking. I am the commander of the Joint Support and Enabling Command in Ulm.

As VCOS SHAPE has explained, for me and my team, it is the first part that we are involved in a major NATO exercise. And we will show in this exercise that we are part of the NATO team, we are responsible for the reinforcement process, and we are responsible looking on the 360 degree view.

This means looking on the speed of relevance. One of the most important factors for NATO is to make the movement and the deployment for the following forces quicker, as we have done in the past. And therefore, we have the Joint Force Command Norfolk, and the JSEC, both new entities which are involved in this exercise. And looking on the history of the JSEC, we have started to be part of the team in 2018 when we have had a decision to build up the JSEC. Now we have finalized our structure, we have finalized our concepts, and now it is a first part to show that we are a benefit to make the deployment process quicker.

Ludger Möllers (Schwäbische Zeitung)

Thank you Mr. General.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Okay, thank you very much. And of course, this new command, the Joint Support and Enabling Command in Ulm, as we said, is a new command, focused on logistics, on military mobility, so obviously, has an important part to play in this exercise. With that we'll go to the next question, which comes from Brooks Tigner from Jane's Defence.

Brooks Tigner (Jane's Defence)

Yes, thanks. Yes, as you all might know, today the EU approved the new entry of the United States, Canada and Norway, into the Netherlands-led PESCO project on military mobility, which of course has some relevance for what DEFENDER is doing, so my question is: will that PESCO activity and its expanded membership be linked in any way - maybe it's too premature to ask this, but nevertheless - will it be linked in any way to DEFENDER activities. And if so are you looking into any specific vignettes to test that link? Thanks.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

I don’t know if General Houdet or General Knappe would want to come in here?

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

I think I can give a brief overview and General Knappe will go on it. For sure that is totally part of the exercise. We have been working in NATO on military mobility in close cooperation with the European Union for long. This is not a new story. And this is something… Well, if we create a new command for enablement and support, this is because military mobility is one of the key topics in the center of what we do and definitely this exercise is linked to it but I think General Knappe can elaborate.

Lieutenant General Juergen Knappe (Commander of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command)

And the military mobility, the PESCO project of military mobility, is very closely linked with the mission of the JSEC. What I have said at the beginning, looking on the speed of relevance, looking on the deployment process, the PESCO project military mobility can with a long term perspective and instrument from the EU to support NATO. We have different rules, we have different regulations and in the NATO states, and my duty is to bring together the sovereign states to make the deployment process quicker. And this is very very close linked with military mobility. And I'm sure that we will receive a lot of recommendations during this exercise, and after the exercise, after the learning phase, we will go more in detail how we can bring military mobility to a success and to link it with our mission looking on the Joint Support and Enabling Command from now on.

Brooks Tigner (Jane's Defence)

Just to follow with one question. Will there be any specific vignettes in DEFENDER that have that PESCO project in mind? Maybe not.

Lieutenant General Juergen Knappe (Commander of NATO’s Joint Support and Enabling Command)

Yes, the VCOS has explained that my part in this exercise is a command post exercise. I have not a real life part in this exercise, but I will play in the exercise six different vignettes and one will be very closely linked with this question, looking on military mobility, because this is one of the key of my missions.

Brooks Tigner (Jane's Defence)

Okay, thank you.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Let me also add, Brooks, you may have seen the Secretary General speaking at the doorstep at the European Union meeting of Defence Ministers earlier today, where he also addressed the issue of military mobility. He welcomed the fact that the Council has now approved to the participation of the United States, Norway and Canada in the PESCO project on military mobility. And he also stressed the importance, the vital importance of non-EU-NATO allies for the security of the whole of Europe. And that's why it's important that military mobility which we see as a flagship of NATO-EU cooperation, yields concrete results, as soon as possible in terms of improved infrastructure, faster ability for our troops to move across Europe, and that includes non-EU NATO members. We see, for instance, and the Secretary General gave us an example this morning, Steadfast Defender 21, where one part of the exercise will be focused on deploying our Very High Readiness Joint Task Force, the VJTF, thousands of troops to Romania. And there are 12 nations being involved in this part of the exercise, including the US, the UK, and Turkey, which of course has the leadership of the land command of the VJTF right now. So that in itself shows how important it is for our troops to be able to deploy very quickly and without any hindrances from long distances, very quickly at the speed of relevance. For instance, the Spanish forces have just started deploying, as we speak. So we're talking about crossing the continent in all directions, and the more we're able to do that faster, the safer we will all be. So, obviously, that's why this project is important for NATO to ensure that NATO can continue to defend our nations in Europe. And I see Rikard Jowiak from Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty in Prague already online regard please go ahead.

Rikard Jowiak (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty)

Perfect, thank you. I just wonder have Russian military observers been invited. If they have: have they confirmed that they've been invited, will they come? If they are coming, which country or countries will they attend and how many of them will they be? And I wonder General, if you can repeat the total number of soldiers and vehicles and aircrafts, for all together the whole exercise? And if you can tell us if that's what the size is of that compared to previous exercises in previous years - if it's big, small or medium sized? Thank you.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Thank you. There are multiple questions in your question and I appreciate that very much. Can someone please bring up the map of the exercise where we can see the geography and the figures? So, first of all, your first question, is there any invitation regarding to the Vienna Document? What I want to say is that your question is about transparency. Well, I think what we are doing right now is absolutely about transparency. I tell you everything, why we do this exercise, what we are going to do, where we do it, when we do it, what troops are involved in it. So you can see on the map that on the three parts on the first part, maybe you cannot see so let me give you some advertisement, the maritime part of the exercise is involving about 20 navy ships, about 40 military aircraft, and about 5000 troops.

The second part in Ulm is a command post exercise, or headquarters exercise if you wish, and this is about 300 military people. And the third part in Romania, which is land-centric, about the deployment of our Very High Readiness Task Force is around 4000 soldiers, about 600 vehicles, among which a bit less than 200 armored vehicles. So in total, depending on the time when we do, at the peak of the exercise we reach a maximum of 9000 soldiers. So, I think I'm doing total transparency with you here. If you want more detail you can ask me any question I have nothing to hide.

The second thing about the Vienna Document, the declaration, and the observers from Russia. You have to know that the Vienna Document states that over 9000 men on land, you have to do a notification, a declaration. Above 13,000 figure, which we do not reach, you have mandatorily to invite observers. Nevertheless, we have nothing to hide, and as of now, Russia has not made any request to send observers to the exercise. Does this answer all of your question? Okay, very good.

Colonel James Scott (Allied Joint Force Command)

General, if I may add to that. My name is Colonel James Scott, I'm from Joint Force Command Naples, and I've been intimately involved in planning this exercise. And as the General stated very clearly NATO takes our treaty obligations very seriously and we are absolutely ready in all parts of the exercise to support the host nations to fulfill their treaty obligations.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Let me just confirm that, as far as we know, Russia has not asked to observe this exercise. But, of course, NATO exercises are regularly subject to international observation based on the requirements of the Vienna Document of the OSCE. NATO Allies respect all the transparency obligations under the OSCE document. As Lieutenant General Brice Houdet they made clear, neither the maritime aspect nor the scope of the ground exercises in Steadfast Defender 21 require notification under the Vienna Document. But of course, we remain open and transparent in everything that we do. And since Rikard you asked about Russia specifically let me also add that no Russian exercise has been subject to mandatory observation under the Vienna Document of the OSCE since the end of the Cold War.

And with that, I will move on to the next question which we had by email from Romania from Radu Tudor at Antena 3. And his question is: what is the relevance of this exercise for strengthening NATO's eastern flank? And when will multinational NATO command in Romania become operational? And I assume – yes, he's talking about HQ multinational core, south-east.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Yes, I think Naples can answer this.

Colonel James Scott (Allied Joint Force Command)

And again, to the best of my knowledge General, I believe that it is in 2022. If that fact is not correct, I'll come straight back to you.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Okay, thank you, on the part of the question, how is this strengthening the eastern part of the Alliance: what I have to tell you, of course, it is part of the exercise because as we stated we deploy parts of the troops of the exercise in Romania, but I want to state again that we are a 360-degree defensive alliance. Okay, maybe this year, for this defender series, we have a specific surface focus on the Black Sea region. But you know this is rotating, and depending on the years we can go also to the Baltic Sea region, we can be in Central Europe, we can be in Western Europe, we can be in the Atlantic. I mean, we go everywhere on our territory.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Let me just add that multinational core south-east, HQ multinational core south-east, has reached initial operational capability, and this will be exercised during Steadfast Defender 21. So obviously for them, this is an important milestone. And it's expected to become fully operational. In the next few years. For the next question I see Iurri Sheiko from Deutsche Welle. Iurri, please go ahead.

Iurri Sheiko (Deutsche Welle)

So, I have a follow up question on the transparency and observation. It was said that Russia has not asked to allow its observers to come. But if Russia asks is NATO ready to allow? Because as you said that the number of soldiers participating is below the threshold. So is NATO ready to allow Russian observers?

The second question is also connected to Russia, which is using this Steadfast Defender exercises to excuse so to say its build-up, military build-up near Ukrainian borders that we saw recently. So what is your answer to this? Because they say yeah, if NATO is exercising near, so to say, Russian borders, or Belarus, then they also have the right - that's their claim. And the third one, as far as I understand Ukraine will participate in the Steadfast Defender, so could you please elaborate in which part will Ukraine participate, with how many forces, and what will be, so to say, what will Ukrainian soldiers be able to learn through this exercise? Thank you very much.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Okay, Iurii. Thank you very much for the question. I will take the military side of it. First of all, you said that NATO has mandatory obligation regarding the Vienna Document. This is not true, unfortunately. NATO is not the signatory of the Vienna Document. This is individual nations, members of NATO, so it's not NATO per se.

Secondly, there is no Ukrainian participation in this exercise. We have other partners involved in it, but not Ukraine. Ukraine is not participating in the exercise. And as I said, don't think this is something we are doing in a tricky way. As I said, this is an exercise that has been in planning for almost two years, so what we do today is coming from a long way ago. And as far as messaging towards Russia, this is, I think this is much more political than military so.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Yes, indeed, as the General said, and has said throughout, every country has the right to exercise and train their troops. That's absolutely normal. That's what our armed forces have to do. But, of course, those exercises need to be done with full transparency within our international obligations. NATO countries fully respect their international commitments, including under the Vienna Document of the OSCE. And we continue to do so. So, we remain transparent about our defensive exercises. At the same time of course we have to remain vigilant about what is happening very close to our borders. We see that Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops in and around Ukraine. And while it has started, withdrawing some of those troops recently, tens of thousands of troops still remain in and around Ukraine. As the Secretary General said very clearly, again, earlier today when speaking at the European Union, because the situation in and around Ukraine and Russia’s aggressive pattern of behaviour was also a subject that was addressed in that meeting. So he also made clear that we are monitoring very closely. We remain very vigilant. Because what we see is a continued military presence by Russia, which exceeds even the high number of military presence that was there before the recent escalation.

So that is a matter of concern and NATO Allies have made very clear that they fully support Ukraine's territorial integrity and sovereignty and call on Russia to de-escalate and to respect its international commitments, including at the OSCE where repeated requests for more clarity on these deployments have not actually been answered.

And I think we can now go to Lee Willett, who is a freelance journalist on maritime issues.

Lee Willett (freelancer on maritime issues)

Thank you. Good afternoon and thank you for having me. Question for Lieutenant General Houdet and for Rear Admiral Betton if I may, please. Could you please provide us with some more details on what the maritime naval elements of the exercise will be about? So, what will happen, what will you do, and what's involved? And secondly, more broadly, because of JSEC and Norfolk's involvement in this, please, could you perhaps discuss the role of JSEC and Norfolk in fourth generation for exercises like this, for operations, and also more importantly for strengthening that strategic transatlantic bridge that the General talks about right at the start of the briefing. Thank you.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Andrew. This is yours.

Rear Admiral Andrew Betton (Deputy Commander of NATO Joint Force Command)

General, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning from the United States. I'm Rear Admiral Andrew Betton, the Deputy Commander of Joint Force Command Norfolk. Lee, thank you so much for the question. Joint Force Command Norfolk was established two years ago, alongside Joint Support and Enabling Command, as part of the adaptation of the NATO command structure, specifically to address the contested environments of the transatlantic bridge, the strategic lines of communication that join our Alliance together between North America and the European members. From seabed to space. So we see our role as a multi domain joint operational command that is focused particularly on security of those transatlantic sea lanes. But it does extend beyond that and our partnership with our fellow Joint Forces Commands, and Joint Support and Enabling Command will be critical to the future development of the Alliance. Specifically for Steadfast Defender 21, the first phase, as General Houdet described at the beginning, is focused on the maritime element, the strategic movement of men and materiel across the Atlantic to reinforce Europe, and then be handed over to Joint Support and Enabling Command and moved onwards, handing on to Joint Force Command Naples, as you heard down in southeastern Europe. So the breadth and scale of this exercise I think is really worthy of note. Specifically for the maritime element 11 nations are participating with approximately 20 ships and submarines as the General highlighted. But we're drawing together a really diverse range of nations from Canada, the Netherlands to Turkey, alongside the primary operators in the North Atlantic. And the Queen Elizabeth Carrier Strike Group, as General Houdet mentioned, brings with it, really cutting edge capability in the form of the largest fifth generation fixed wing aircraft air wing that we have seen yet deployed anywhere. So the 18 F-35 stealth jets embarked in the Queen Elizabeth, from the US Marine Corps and from the UK’s Fleet Air Arm and Royal Air Force, come together to provide a really powerful, modern, cutting-edge capability to add to the exercise. The specifics of the LIVEX will be focused around securing the strategic lines of communication in the eastern Atlantic. And I hope that answers your question, Lee. Back to you.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Okay, thank you very much. And we have one last question I think from Maciej Milosz from Dziennik Gazeta Prawna in Poland.

Maciej Milosz (Dziennik Gazeta Prawna)

Good afternoon, thank you for having me. Last year the DEFENDER was supposed to be about 37,000 troops, and it was a big thing. Everyone was talking, this is the biggest troop deployment from the end of the Cold War. Now it is 30,000, and nobody's surprised. So, my question is 30,000 soldiers, neighbor soldiers, training the new normal, or it is again something extraordinary?

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

I think I don't really understand your question. You said 30,000 for what?

Maciej Milosz (Dziennik Gazeta Prawna)

Last year, he DEFENDER was supposed to have 37,000 troops. Now altogether it is about 30,000. And I don't know, four or five years ago, nobody was talking about such numbers. So, my question is 30,000 the new normal?

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Okay. I heard your point, thank you very much. What you have to understand is that currently, you have different exercises going on together, and I can understand this is quite confusing because they are very similar names. So in NATO, you have three kinds of exercises. You have purely national exercises where the nations train their own armed forces. Then you would have a nationally led exercise, where one nation takes the lead and has other member nations or partners taking part in the exercise with them. And this is what is happening right now. This is the US Defender Europe, which is happening in the same time frame as our exercise which is a third category. This is a NATO-led exercise and as you can see, I am from the Supreme Headquarters Allied Power Europe in Mons. You have Admiral Betton from the command in Norfolk. You have Colonel Scott from the command in Naples. So this is NATO. And this is a NATO-led exercise. So that's one point.

Second point about the size of the exercise. I've been a professional soldier for 35 years, I'm not really sure in military training size matters. It's an important factor, but it might not be the most important one. I think what is important in our series of exercises is that we train highly sophisticated modern warfare, equipment, procedures, scenarios, to be ready for the challenges of the future and not to be ready for the wars of yesterday. Are the numbers going to be the key factor in future conflict? I'm not true. You have some weapons with incredible power served by a few men. You have everything that's happening in the cyberspace, where the number of space… of cyber fighters, excuse me, is not so relevant. So, possibly in total, if you put up everything that the nations are doing and what NATO is doing at an instantaneous time, you can reach dozens of thousands of soldiers, but I'm not sure it's an important criterion. Does this answer your question?

Maciej Milosz (Dziennik Gazeta Prawna)

Thank you.

Colonel James Scott (Allied Joint Force Command)

General, if I may just add a little bit of clarity on the numbers, because there was a suggestion that we were having 30,000. And that's not correct. So, the first part has 5000. The second part has 300. And the third part has 4000. Giving a total of 9300.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Colonel Scott may also want to clarify any connection between the US-led exercise, Defender Europe 21, and the NATO-led Exercise Steadfast Defender 21.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

I can clarify this. I can give you information. So, exercise US Defender Europe at its maximum peak of participation is around 9000 soldiers. Of course, if you take on the whole timeframe, you can find other figures, but they are not realistic. They're not representing what's happening at instant. And second point to what Oana said, of course, this is perfectly coordinated between NATO and the US. We the headquarters of SHAPE, which I'm representing, and US EUCOM in Stuttgart have permanent coordination talks, exchanges. It's the same family, you know, the United States is one member of NATO, so we exchange absolutely every information.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Many thanks. I think that clarifies. We are coming to the end of this briefing. General Houdet, over to you for any final remarks, anything we've missed.

Lieutenant General Brice Houdet (Vice Chief of Staff SHAPE)

Thank you. Thank you very much, Oana. I think we probably missed nothing. I think the team and myself we have advised what we are doing with transparency. I really want to insist on what is not really visible is the high end modernisation future-oriented thinking that is put together in this exercise. Another thing I would like to say is the human factor. During this exercise, there is going to be many women, men of the armed forces of all our member nations that are going to be deployed in sometimes difficult conditions, away from their families and they do this with a dedication for the service of their country, for the service of the Alliance. I was part of this in the first part of my career. I know what toll it takes. And I really want to thank them for providing peace for our Alliance.

NATO Spokesperson Oana Lungescu

Thank you very much, Lieutenant General’s Brice Houdet, the Vice Chief of Staff of SHAPE in Mons. Thank you also to our colleagues who have joined us from Allied Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy. In NATO Joint Force Command in Norfolk, in the United States, and NATO's Joint Support and Enabling Command in Ulm, in Germany.

So this concludes this briefing on Exercise Steadfast Defender 21. And, of course, we will continue to update you as the exercise unfolds. Many thanks. Good afternoon.